Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(98)
While various reasons are given for Charlotte’s decision to break the betrothal, I suspect from the subtle things she said in various letters that at some point the Princess discovered the truth about Orange’s sexual preferences. But because her friend Mercer was in London at the time when Charlotte’s attitude toward Orange shifted suddenly from a determination to make the best of things into an intense, bitter loathing, we do not know for certain. But we do know that because of her experiences with her father, honesty was very important to Charlotte, and she felt betrayed.
The Dutch Republic dated back to the sixteenth-century Union of Utrecht and lasted until overrun by the French in 1795. After the defeat of Napoléon, the Allies decided to turn the stadtholder—who had been an elected head of state—into a king and joined Holland to the largely French-speaking Austrian Netherlands (today’s Belgium). The resultant Kingdom of the United Netherlands lasted until the Belgian Revolution of 1830, after which the Belgians were allowed to recover their separate identity, but only as the Kingdom of Belgium under Leopold I (yes, the same Leopold who was by then Princess Charlotte’s widower).
The Regent did suffer a well-publicized attack of gout in January of 1814, and he really did hate dogs. Charlotte did have a white greyhound named Toby that had belonged to Napoléon’s wife before being seized aboard a French ship and sent to the Prince.
Charlotte Jones (I have called her “Lottie” to avoid the confusion of two characters with the same name) was Princess Charlotte’s miniature portrait painter. The daughter of a Norwich merchant, she moved to London after the death of her father to study under Richard Cosway. Appointed Princess Charlotte’s official miniature portrait painter in 1808, she also received commissions from numerous other members of the Royal family and the likes of Lady Caroline Lamb. She was dismissed by the Regent along with the rest of Charlotte’s household in the summer of 1814.
While Jane Ambrose is fictional, Princess Charlotte did have a piano instructor named Jane Mary Guest, who had a minor reputation as a composer. A pupil of Johann Christian Bach and Thomas Linley, Guest also taught Charlotte’s youngest aunt, the Princess Amelia. The Regent fired her along with the rest of Charlotte’s staff in the summer of 1814.
The limitations placed on the fictional Jane Ambrose as a female musician were real. Mendelssohn’s sister Fanny and Mozart’s sister, Maria Anna, were both acknowledged as being at least as talented as their famous brothers. Like the fictional Jane, they were allowed to perform with their brothers while young but forced to retire from the public eye when they reached marriageable age. Maria Anna Mozart did compose music, but it is not known if her brother published any of it as his own; Felix Mendelssohn did publish some of his sister Fanny’s works, but since that occurred after the date of this story, neither Hero nor Miss Kinsworth is able to reference it.
Thomas Linley was a famous tenor, music teacher, and composer whose numerous musical children were legendary. The family seems to have had a fatal weakness for tuberculosis, or consumption as it was then called, and most died quite young. One of his daughters, Elisabeth, was the first wife of playwright Richard Sheridan. A noted soprano, she had to give up performing at the time of her marriage.
Princess Charlotte’s governess in January of 1814 was the Duchess of Leeds, who was much as I have described her here. The young Lady Arabella is modeled on the Duchess’s daughter, Lady Catherine Osborne, who was introduced into Charlotte’s household to spy on the Princess. Lady Catherine actually did learn German when Charlotte and Miss Knight began speaking that language to keep her from eavesdropping on their conversations. When the Princess and her subgoverness switched to Italian, Lady Catherine then began taking Italian lessons from Charlotte’s harp instructor. And yes, at one point Princess Charlotte did lock the annoying duke’s daughter in a water closet (toilet) for fifteen minutes.
William Godwin was a real historical figure, famous at the time as a political philosopher but better known today as the widower of the pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. He was also the father of Mary Godwin Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of the poet Shelley. Godwin did live in Clerkenwell, on Skinner Street, and in later life he did write, publish, and sell children’s books.
Publishers, printers, and bookstores worked differently in the early nineteenth century than they do today. Printers typically sold their books in plain paper wrappers with temporary sewing; the books were permanently bound by either bookstores or their purchasers, who would have them bound to match their libraries. Many printers had their own bookstores and binderies.
The character of Liam Maxwell is a composite of several radical journalists including Leigh and John Hunt, William Cobbett, Thomas Jonathan Wooler, Richard Carlile, and others. It was not uncommon for journalists to be imprisoned for publishing unflattering truths about the Prince of Wales or simply criticizing practices such as the pillory or impressment.
The large size of the Royal Navy combined with the brutal discipline, hideous living conditions, and low pay for which it was infamous meant Britain’s warships could be kept crewed only by the use of impressment. Armed press gangs roamed ports and nearby villages to carry off able-bodied boys and men; men were also seized off merchant ships, both British and foreign, and from foreign naval ships (the latter played a major role in the United States’ declaration of the War of 1812). It is said that at the time of Trafalgar more than half the Royal Navy’s 120,000 sailors were pressed men. These men’s wives and families were often left destitute.